Michael returns to Heaven aflame with thoughts. Finally, he has met the vessel in person, something he long anticipated. Dean Winchester seemed belligerent, stubborn, and scared; nothing more than Michael expected. He will come to agree with Heaven, when the time is right. Michael has only to wait. He is patient.

He is glad he had the chance to speak with Dean.

Raphael is waiting for him when he returns, alight with expectant triumph. 'You captured the Winchesters?' he asks, with a satisfied certainty of hearing yes manifest in his tone.

'No,' Michael says evenly. 'I killed Anna.' The name her human parents gave her feels strange when he says it, but it is who she wished to be and he has no reason to deny her that small courtesy. 'It was necessary; she would have killed the Winchesters. Uriel was also there. I allowed him to leave.'

Raphael nods. 'And the Winchesters?' He frowns. 'You let them go?'

'Yes. I erased John and Mary's memories, healed Sam and sent him and Dean back to their own time. Why?' he adds, a warning tone. 'Do you disapprove?'

'I wouldn't say…' Raphael hesitates, reluctant to criticise Heaven's most powerful soldier and de facto leader. He temporarily abandoned his vessel in the incident when Castiel and Dean trapped him - which Michael watched with fascination and, he cannot deny, amusement - and Michael can see frustration threading brightly through the light of his true form; in such a situation, his equivocation is largely pointless. Eventually, Raphael sighs, and speaks. 'Michael, had you taken the Winchesters alive, or their parents as hostages, we could be at this moment persuading your vessel - '

'There was no need to do so,' Michael says flatly, cutting off his younger brother. Raphael is faithful to Heaven, and a useful second-in-command, but sometimes Michael feels doubt that he fully understands the divine plan, the right course of action.

It is not of import. He can guide Raphael. He can guide all of Heaven on the right path. It is his responsibility to ensure that Raphael does not err on his course, and he is perfectly capable of fulfilling it.

'Michael, this was an important chance, and we lost it! Anna led the Winchesters to a place where they were finallyaccessible; you know how long we've waited for this!'

Michael silences him with a cold look. 'Anna was a wild card,' he says matter-of-factly. 'She was not part of the divine plan. This incident was not the chance we are waiting for. We are not going to coerce my vessel into consenting. You know that perfectly well. He will allow me to take him when the time is right.'

'You are optimistic,' Raphael says, voice like stone. He is angry; he still thinks that Dean Winchester will have to be forced into his fate. Michael sighs, inwardly. He is an archangel, the first archangel, and exasperation, as such, is beneath him, but…

'I have faith,' he corrects his younger brother patiently. 'God is not…present, but that does not preclude his plans coming to fruition, and it certainly does not allow us to ignore his orders.'

'I want to follow his orders,' Raphael snaps. 'Including "Defeat Lucifer". We need to capture Dean Winchester, force him to comply, and you can kill Lucifer. Before he gets his vessel. We'll have the advantage. And you're throwing it away, Michael!'

'Perhaps,' Michael says, hiding a smile. No, Raphael does not understand. But he will, eventually. 'I am the oldest brother, and that is my prerogative.'

'If we lose,' Raphael says, voice low and humming with anger, 'if Lucifer defeats you because you didn't take your opportunities when they came…' He does not finish the sentence.

'We won't lose. I defeated our brother before.' Michael hates the memory and is proud of it at the same time; he hates that mix of feelings even more. He has no room for doubt; he has no time to be unsure of his own thoughts. The look on Lucifer's face, at that moment, haunts him, will do so forever. But he did his duty. 'I will do it again.'

'Not without your vessel!' If it were not for Raphael's evident agitation, Michael would be angry. But his brother is irritated and confused, and he should be lenient.

'You think I missed a chance to take Dean as my vessel by force?' he says, resigned to the explanation. 'Maybe I did, but what I did instead was save his parents, heal his brother, defend him and his family from a threat. And I talked to him.'

Michael remembers Dean, staring at his brother lying on the floor, at the someone else looking out from his father's face, hands curled like commas held stiffly at his sides. Probably he wanted to hit Michael, although presumably he knows that hitting an angel is a bad idea. He was joking, sarcastic, obstinate as ever, but he said something telling: I have to believe. Dean knows, now, that he is fooling himself, and it is a short step from that knowledge to actually ending his internal charade. Not long left to wait, Michael hopes, before he gives up on these delusions of free will and accepts Michael as he was always meant to. He spoke to Dean of the love he feels still for his brother, and saw a new understanding gleaming in the man's eyes; he told Dean that his ideas of free will are only illusions, and saw Dean swallow, choking on the knowledge that Michael is right. Dean is complicated, yes, but he is also very, very human, and there is a certain transparency to that; it is not difficult for Michael to look ahead and watch the strands of his Father's plan winding together in this man. He wonders how to explain this to Raphael.

'Dean is going to stop thinking of me as a threat,' he settles for, 'and he is becoming more disillusioned with the world and his prospects of saving it. He'll say yes, Raphael. He played his part in the breaking of Lucifer's seals, with time, and he'll do it again; we only have to wait. Do what is allotted to us, no more.'

'I don't understand the blind faith you have in this plan,' Raphael says coldly.

Michael reaches out, touches his brother's Grace, calms him with a gentle effort of will. 'We are beings of faith,' he says. 'We're not blind. It is faith that lights our way.'

Raphael does not answer; Michael can still feel his brother's resentment, uncertainty, frustration. Raphael does not have enough faith. (Michael does worry for him, sometimes. Raphael's disillusionment has given him a certain callousness, and it makes him uneasy that his younger brother is…well.) But Michael does. He is the oldest son, the dutiful son; he has faith enough for all of Heaven if needs be, and he will lead them on the path of righteousness. As he is meant to.